Diary of a Squealy Spaniel 16th Nov 21

Don’t read on thinking this was a process in which I never cried or got stressed or held him wondering if I would ever get to take him with me because I did. The least I wanted for us was to be able to go beating together and once I heard that noise it broke my heart. I had big plans for Thorn as his pedigree is ONLY FTCH. There are no winners only champions, I thought we would be in with a chance. I refuse to let this stop us and we will keep going. He is the most wonderful affectionate and eager to please dog and I hope to at least one day have him quieter.

Prior to starting this regime, I had been on 2 shoot days with Thorn and one Novice J reg test.

The first shoot day was a disaster, my hand was so thoroughly bruised from him pulling me along It went purple. It was also a complete nightmare beating in heavy bramble with a dog on the lead. Thorns instincts were telling him to go under it while I was trying to squash it down so we could walk over it. Very scratched up hands and I didn’t not enjoy the day at all. He was a lamb at lunchtime just laying under a truck I had attached him to the tow bar of. Every time we got near a shot he would scream and in between the whining was constant. It sounds like a cross between a nova Scotia duck tolling retriever scream and a” you’ve stood on my tail” kind of noise. Its incredibly loud and causes everyone to turn and look at us.

I had of course done so much training with Thorn to prepare him for the shoot but you wouldn’t have known it. We looked like complete amateurs. Thorn had heard shot soooo many times as we live on a shoot and have pigeon shooting and crow scarers going off all the time. It seemed he knew exactly what this scenario meant and what he wanted to do but he was on the lead and couldn’t.

The second time was better, off to a rocky start with the lead coming out of my hand and he ran down the side of the cover to my embarrassment. Pulling constantly, whining pretty much all the time. The good parts were two off lead hunting in cover drives which he did wonderfully. He was looking out for me, quartering it up and stopping on the whistle. Being asked to pick up on one drive we stood and watched the shooting start and the screaming ramped up, I walked and turned him away keeping him on the move seemed to distract him a little. Three pheasants were blown over to us, a red lab grabbed one after jumping the ditch and I was dammed if I was going to let this opportunity pass us by. So I walked him up to about 50 yards away. He hadn’t marked it so asked him to hunt them up. He sniffed for a few seconds, I encouraged, and he picked and brought them to me. I was so proud, and he loved it. It broke my heart though too because this is what he wanted to do, I felt like I had failed him and not prepared him enough for this environment. Other dogs seemed to be coping so well, one having never had heard a shot was an angel all day and it made me despair.